


just me, her & the moon

by biggrstaffbunch



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-28
Updated: 2015-11-28
Packaged: 2018-05-03 18:31:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5302301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biggrstaffbunch/pseuds/biggrstaffbunch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They kiss like they’ve waited a lifetime to do it, and truly:</p><p>Gaby feels as if they have.</p>
            </blockquote>





	just me, her & the moon

They do get their kiss that day.

Hours after Waverly gives them that ridiculous name. When the sun has sunk low into the sky, and everything is a blazing orange and pink, when the breeze is cool and Solo is off seducing another hotel employee. When they’re sitting in a cafe, sipping drinks and staring at each other with uncertain eyes.

Gaby has had a very long few days. She has had a very long few years. Nothing has sparked the nerves under her skin, lit her up with terror and pleasure and purpose and amusement as much as this mission. And the thought that she will be part of more, the thought that she will be able to live beyond a wall, become something despite her beginnings, live out from under the shadow of her father and his legacy—it's heady.

The thought that she will be able to do that with Illya Kuryakin is somehow...similarly heady.

When they danced, it was just a joke. Teasing, to see if he could be pushed into action. Some release of the tension she could see shaking inside him, and some release of the drunken, liquid courage that was building inside her. But there had been a moment, an easing of degrees, when she could feel his body under hers and read the desire in his eyes, and she had—

Oh. She had  _wanted_.

And then, later. More missed moments. Standing atop a table, his mouth so close to hers, looking golden in a wash of sunlight. Hearing him promise to keep her safe even as she knew what she would do. She could've tipped his head back, kissed the worry and sincerity from his face.

But then, just as today, they had been interrupted by more pressing agendas. Frustration is a coil in her belly. She is a mechanic by trade, and Gaby longs to take Illya apart.

If nothing else, she is good at taking initiative. She has had to learn. And so she takes the tumbler of sharp, sweet whiskey from Illya’s hands and she takes his hand. His very large hands, each one practically bigger than her face. Why do men need hands like this? How do they do anything? She often wonders; she can’t imagine learning the complex workings of metal and wires, unearthing treasures as she does, not with such large hands.

Still. There is a beauty in Illya’s fingers, the length and strength of them. She remembers them trembling over her face like rain. She remembers them hot on her thigh.

She remembers grabbing one, when she was drunk and afraid, when she didn’t know anything except that this Russian man, so tall and so imperious, was strangely comforting in his willingness to be mastered by her. 

Now, she traces the lines of his palm. “Illya,” she says. There is no challenge in her voice. Simply a question. She is testing the waters. This is not something only she can want. But she has to be sure.

He stares down at his hand in hers. “What do you see?” he asks. There is a scar on his face. Gaby would like to know its story. She would like to know many of his stories. How he came to be, in all his glorious absurdity.

She tilts her head. “What do you mean?”

His eyes are so blue. “When you look at my hand, I think you are reading my fate. What do you see?”

Gaby arches a brow and leans forward. “You believe there is so easy a way to determine the path ahead?” she asks. “How...American.”

Illya laughs. It’s a rusty sound, a curve of his lips and a breath through his nose, but it makes her smile. He has not laughed in a long time. He should; he has hair like a fairytale, and Gaby knows from the old books crumbling in her apartment in Berlin that fairytales are happy.

She would like to see if she could make this spy, this taciturn agent, happy. A challenge, perhaps. Or a softening of her heart, though she can't be sure.

“I was being whimsical, I thought,” he admits ruefully. “It is possible I am not very good at such a thing.”

She imagines he has never said those words to anyone before. It warms her, through and through. As does the look on his face, the hungry way that he is staring at her, the bemusement and wonder and sheer  _want_.

Gaby knows what it is to want; her past is her battleground and she has had to fight for everything she has. Even herself.  _Especially_ herself.

“Illya,” she says his name again, this time more thoughtfully. “I’m not your woman.”

There is a light that dims in Illya’s eyes. He doesn’t like being left behind or rejected, however used to it he must be. Perhaps that is why Gaby likes him so; he is honest in his reactions, in his desire to be good enough, his hurt pride and terrible anger. She can empathize. For so long, she had wondered why she was not more compelling than Hitler. But both she and Illya are the ruins of their parents’ avarice and moral failings. Both she and Illya share a complex mix of love and resentment, of loneliness and bravado.

They’re quite alike, the two of them. A German and Russian. With American and British tagalongs. So improbable that it almost makes Gaby laugh.

Instead, she leans over, framed by the first slice of the Italian moon. Her hands brace themselves on Illya’s knees, and she repeats herself, her words a whisper across his lips:

“I’m not your woman,” she says again, “but I will let you be my man.”

And then she slants her mouth over his, sinks into the warm cage of his body, the bracket of his long legs and strong arms, stroking his tongue with hers until bolts of heat are striking through her. He tastes like alcohol and gunpowder, the tang of blood and the clean bite of mint. He kisses her with muffled groans, the fluttering shut of his eyes, a questing of his hands over her back, over her bum, fingers spearing through her hair.

They kiss like they’ve waited a lifetime to do it, and truly:

Gaby feels as if they have.


End file.
